Exciting find at the antique store this weekend! So, a little story for my reading, writing, and planty friends… (I’m looking at you, Audrice!)

Some of you know I have a weakness for houseplants, and got this beautiful Calathea “Fusion White” for my birthday in March. We went to this specific antique shop because a lady from my FB plant group has a booth there where she sells houseplants. I did not buy a plant.

A purple and white Calathea in a purple square ceramic planter.
Birthday Calathea in the new planter

What I found was this purple planter. It caught my eye because of the color and shape. Then I put on my readers to see the price tag, out of curiosity, not because I wanted to buy it. Once my eyes focused and I saw the images on the sides of the pot, I got goosebumps and knew I had to have it, regardless of the price (thankfully it was only $12).

Among my works in progress is a novel I’ve been playing at writing and researching for … I don’t know… let’s say eight years. The characters have been in the back of my head that long any way. This is a historical mystery. Those of you who are writers know that these characters in our stories become almost as real to us as our family members. If we are really good writers, they become that real to our readers, too.

The story starts in Berlin at the early part of WWII. A botanist worked his connections in England to get his four little girls evacuated out of Germany. The story follows the girls as they are then evacuated from England to the US, and eventually adopted by various German immigrant families in the US. Something happens in the process that they spend the rest of their lives hiding and avoiding.

It’s been heartbreaking to research the way children were moved for their safety during those years, and interviewing women (now in their 80s) who were children in Germany during those years has been very eye-opening. We rarely read history from the children’s perspective.

The main characters are four sisters named… wait for it… Rose, Iris, Daisy, and Lily.

Collage of the four sides of the planter with images and scripts of Rose, Iris, Daisy, and Lily
Rose, Daisy, Iris, Lily

Now that story of the Four Flowers (working title) is just begging to be finished….